Assumption pt6
by fl0aty
Summary: time is running out, is the theme presented as Walter Sullivan has an appointment with a watchmaker, an appointment that will surely end in death for one of them...


inot me, Walter, them/i Valtiel assured him, ibthey/b are out to destroy you./i an offer that invited a look at the people coming and going from the trains. bNow/b they seemed to notice him. Walter saw the occasional tight lipped smile, the sympathetic glances. br and hated it."no!" hands over his ears again, altho he already knew this gesture did nothing about Valtiel. he scurried up the stairs, awkwardly, all but falling in his stumble to leave the subway. His back no longer hurt, but it throbbed constantly, and felt terribly numb in places, like ice. His glasscut hand could barely move, and it was swollen so that the bandage was too tight. "you just leave me alone!" br but Valtiel would not. iout to get you/i he confirmed, iand your time is running out./i It was getting close now. Douglas Cartland was, at that time on the Silent Hill police force. He was in homicide, and had been following the string of murders most carefully. So far no one but him had realized the connection between the death of the children- thus far the most shocking murder and the one which had truly made the locals horrified to be out at night- and the ones in the cult compound at Wish House. Wish House, after all, was a private community, a secretive place. They had been none too happy with the detective's interrogations, and had clearly been trying to hold something back. Douglas was talking with his partner, Clark Gucci, about his findings.br "These people know something. I think the killer was someone they had known before. they just don't want to open up to 'outsiders' enough to reveal what they know." br Gucci didn't know what to make of that. "But...you'd think they'd want to tell you, that way they could sleep safe at night knowing the creep was behind bars and out of their hair."br "Aah, you'd think that, but some of these weirdy religious types would rather sleep next to poison than risk having their weirdo lifestyles exposed and ridiculed..." Douglas looked at the coroner's photos. Something about the numerals was disturbing enough...but the meticulous way the killer sewed the chests back up as tho he couldn't bear the sight of the holes was even more disturbing. Like someone who had to look at disorder and filth all the time. Someone who'd want to keep things tidy...br "I get the feeling we're right on top of this," Douglas said, "like this killer is right under our noses..." P itime is running out.../i the words plagued Walter, they tortured him, and it felt to him now as if every sewer grating held a hidden microphone, every pigeon looking down from rooftops was a messenger bird, all carrying every subtle detail about him back to the people who wanted to hurt him, hate him, punish him for the crimes he hadn't even wanted to commit... time was running out. Time...br He saw something shiny in the dirt and it caught his attention. With numb, shaky fingers he managed to pick it up after the third try... a watch. an ornate old pocketwatch. Walter shook it, put it to his ear. Well of course it wasn't running...suddenly, inexplicably he knew that he wanted it to run. Moreso, he ineeded/i it to run, so he could know exactly how much more time he really had...br walking was getting more and more difficult but he did it now with purpose, sure in all his wanderings in the streets of this city he had seen a sign advertizing what he needed now...br Ashfield was bigger than it seemed, and the wrongness in his back was weakening him. it was nightfall when he finally found the place- a clock repair shop.It was on a back street and the front door, Walter found, was locked; it was by appointment only. He lurches towards the back door, which was down an alley.br William Gregory was the watch shop owner. He didn't plan to stay this late, but he had always loved his work, and when he was repairing a thing time all but stopped for him he was so fixated upon his task. He had left the back door open. The air in the alley smelled none too pleasant, but it was the only way to get a breeze in. br He was startled when he realized the shabby man had been standing there for some time watching him, but when he saw what the destitute creature was holding out to him with an imploring look in his eyes, he could think of nothing else. "This watch...you need it repaired?" br Walter nodded, and let the man take the watch from him. He was feeling pretty weak about now, and sort of let himself slide to a seated position in the doorway.br The watchmaker had little interest in him tho. He had moved back to his bench and turned on a little mobile lamp, swung it over to have a better look at Walter's pocketwatch. it was an ornate little thing, very old. This watch may very well have been Swiss, and was probably pre WW2. br With no regard for time or his 'guest' or anything, Gregory set to work on Walter's watch. it was a remarkable piece and all he wanted was this time alone with it. Walter could have died in his doorway there and it would hardly have mattered; when Gregory was fixing clocks, nothing existed in all the world except for him and that clock. br It was well past midnight when the watch finally could be coaxed to tick. and like clockwork Walter rose from his pained stupor at the sound of that tiny ticking. He got up, awkwardly, hand out for the watch.br "I can't pay you any money..." he admitted, altho of course if he'd had some and the man would have taken it without incident, perhaps all would have been well. Perhaps.p There was a pesky twinkle in the watchmaker's eye as Walter said this. he was putting away his tiny toolset and now he thought how easy it would be to cheat this bedraggled old bum of his treasure.br "Really. well then you realize I'll just have to hold on to it until you bring me some." br William Gregory, of course, had no intent to give the watch back at all. He could sell this thing easily and make more than this bum could ever afford. iCould/i, but at this point Gregory coveted the thing he had repaired. He would neither sell it nor, certainly, return it to Walter. he wanted it for himself.br This avarice was his fatal move.br Gregory put the watch in a little jewelbox and, before he could even voice his witty retort, tell Walter he had no intention of giving it back until Walter had paid for it, he was dead. br Walter gave a nervous little cry when he realized what he had done. Maybe he hadn't even intended this. But as soon as he'd realized the man was going to steal his watch he had just iacted/i.Picked up something to hand- a screwdriver. Thrust it with such force and anger when the man turned around- such weird precision. It had split the eye, gone up the socket into the brain. The body was still twitching on the ground, but Walter knew by now how a person moved when they were dying, and he had just killed this guy without thinking.br Walter moved to retrieve his watch. It was ticking now, and he was pleased about that. He was about to go...when he looked at the body of the clock repairman on the floor.  
br Valtiel hadn't even had to be a part of this, had he? and yet...br Yet Walter knew Valtiel was determined he go thru with the 21 Sacraments. Walter knew this and, for all his yelling at Valtiel, for all his hatred of the vile and violent acts the ritual entailed, Walter iwas/i curious about it. To live forever? to find his mom? Maybe, Walter mused, if I take this heart for the ritual, it'll be one less for Valtiel to nag me into doing. br He stooped, and did the thing he did so well. br font faceProbot 09/21/font. If all went well, he was almost halfway there- and one away from having enough to begin the Ritual of Assumption. 


End file.
